Course Description: Process Tracing (PT) is a within-case method that focuses on tracing causal mechanisms – the actual ‘link’ between a trigger (X) and an outcome (Y). This workshop will introduce you to the essentials of this method, its main underlying assumptions and its applicability. We will discuss what causal mechanisms are, how we can ‘trace’ them and what kind of causal inferences we can draw on the bases of a process-tracing study. Moreover, to position PT in the broader methodological field we will look at how PT relates to, but differs from, other (larger- and small-N) case study methods and discuss what understanding of causality underlies process-tracing. This introduction to PT will take a hands-on approach applying the new insights to concrete examples and to the participants’ research projects. The first day we will cover most methodological ground and theoretical debates, the second day is largely reserved for debating practical questions and applicability by means of discussing some of the participants’ own research and applications of PT.

Date of Event: 08.-09.05.2018

Location: GIGA, Neuer Jungfernstieg 21, 20354 Hamburg, Germany

Lecturer: Dr Hilde van Meegdenburg is a postdoctoral research fellow at Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich & Technical University Munich.

Further Information and Registration (Deadline: 6 April 2018)

Course Description: This course presents a research strategy for the selection of comparative cases from different regions in the field of postwar security sector reform (SSR). Key elements are the demilitarization, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) of ex-combatants, reforms in the structure, mandate, accountability, and oversight of the armed forces and the police, as well as in some cases reforms in the justice sector (transitional justice, judiciary). SSR forms part of the standard procedures of international peacebuilding strategies as formulated in the OECD Handbook on Security Sector Reform. However, on the ground, these reforms are not only shaped and influenced by external support but also by the interaction with local conditions such as existing power relations and prior institutional designs. This course introduces to the research strategy we developed starting with three inductive case studies from three regions of the world (El Salvador, Uganda, Nepal) and a quantitative data collection on judiciary reforms for a broader set of postwar countries. The course will introduce into and discuss the challenges of case study selection and data collection.

Date of Event: 03.05.2018

Location: GIGA, Neuer Jungfernstieg 21, 20354 Hamburg, Germany

Lecturer: Dr Sabine Kurtenbach is a Senior Research Fellow at the GIGA Institute of Latin American Studies.

Further Information and Registration (Deadline: 6 April 2018)

Course Description: The aim of the course is threefold: First, the students are going to learn the basic differences between Bayesian and Frequentist statistics. Second, they should be able to identify research questions and ideas that might benefit from a Bayesian approach. Third, they should be able to understand research conducted under a Bayesian framework and how it might differ substantially from Frequentist approach (or whether there is actually no substantive difference).

Date of Event: 26.-27.04.2018

Location: GIGA, Neuer Jungfernstieg 21, 20354 Hamburg, Germany

Lecturer: Dr Hannes Kröger is Research Associate at German Institute for Economic Research (Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung/DIW) in Berlin.

Further Information and Registration (Deadline: 6 April 2018)